Nuclear thread - can we go ballistic?

Re point 2, for me this is one of those areas where what's fun/intuitive in a game trumps what might be the technically more realistic approach. If I launch a big missile at a target, I expect the missile to explode on impact, not to explode in the air above the target.

@blackyps

I suspect the current in-game behavior of strat missiles is a result of what was easiest/fastest to implement at the time, while their form and function is very clearly modeled on ICBMs.

I'm indifferent on ground vs. air burst (and therefore inclined to the status quo) as the real-life lore behind it has no relevance to the sim, unlike trajectory.

how is their function modelled on ICBMs when their range is 80km and they burn the whole flight time?

Range is actually 390.625 km (read as: infinite, within the scope of the game).

"Burn" gets realll fuzzy real quick, because only acceleration is modeled. But given that the missile goes into space (as in, higher than a satellite) and maintains a constant speed, we can surmise that it's not under thrust despite what the flames coming out the back would suggest.

But man I really don't think "nuclear tipped strategic missile vertically launched from a hardened silo is modeled on an ICBM" is the sticking point in this conversation. Do we need to go house to house on this?

The complaint was that there was no balistic parabola, which only makes sense if there is no trust.

we can surmise that it's not under thrust despite what the flames coming out the back would suggest.

Uhhh, yeah I think we can all agree that the notion of things being in space or not falls apart quite a bit in this game. The satellite for example is obviously lower than it should be, because keeping it to scale would be way too clunky to use.
I think it extrapolates to the nuke. The devs designed what they thought looked cool, and I am somewhat confident that the flight path was a pragmatic decision to allow intercepting of the nuke during the complete flight while also being sure to avoid terrain

My original statement was that a ballistic trajectory would be cool. As previously mentioned it's trivial to modify SMD to intercept missiles at an arbitrary height. Let's agree to disagree on the rest of it.

Agreed

Hot fact: SMD will already intercept a nuke of any height. There's something weird with the targeting code (relies on OnGotTarget, somehow), but it'll do it. Only side effect of shooting at a nuke at a ridiculous altitude is that you waste any extra missiles in the SMD silo because the first one takes so long to connect and the SMD keeps shooting until it does.

I am as knowledgeable and interested in missiles as anybody, but I think the FAF nuke is fine as it is. The main problem with parabolic trajectories is that shots are hard to see when they fly that high, as in the case of T3 artillery and Mavors. The current nuke behavior is theatric rather than true to life. The same is true for the slow decent of the missile over its target. In real life, nuclear warheads approach targets at speeds exceeding mach 5. In Faf terms, that's almost a beam weapon.

Then there's the balance problem: Nukes are balanced against bases, because nukes are slow, but bases can't move. Obviously, a realistic fast nuke would change quite a lot about balance and would greatly favor ACU snipes.

Tldr: it's not realistic as it is, but it's fine

@blackyps said in Nuclear thread - can we go ballistic?:

A ballistic parabola only makes sense for unpropelled missiles, but the nuke obviously burns the whole time. It's more like a guided cruise missile.

The 90 degree turn is to avoid terrain collisions, but I guess we could increase the turn radius, so it looks a bit smoother

I think a turn radius increase is a viable option, if admins are willing to change anything at all.

@slicknixon said in Nuclear thread - can we go ballistic?:

@blackyps

I'm indifferent on ground vs. air burst (and therefore inclined to the status quo) as the real-life lore behind it has no relevance to the sim, unlike trajectory.

I would disagree, as the nuke is a superweapon, okay not generally an ICBM, but rather like a real world very powerful tactical nuke, in our sim and not a single projectile aimed at a certain unit or a point of area, and in terms of a superweapon it should act like one e.g. explosion in air for maximum devastation, and a parabolic, or at least have a greater radius, delivery in order to minimize chances of taking it down.

Nukes don't need a buff by blowing up 5 seconds earlier.

@brainstormer

It's optimal for bombs of all sizes to explode a given distance above the ground, it's not just limited to strategic weapons. But it doesn't matter at all in-game because the ground isn't absorbing all that energy/fragmentation you would otherwise be throwing into the surrounding area.

Would be nice to select the nuje and Ctrl k it in flight, could airburst add or something

Y-yeah. We need more ways to fuck the air player in random ass ways. It's not enough that you can ctrlk below asf to win airfight or just fly a flippin transport into enemy air.

@jip said in Nuclear thread - can we go ballistic?:

It can both be implemented, but a parabola trajectory is not recommended. it means that intermediate SMDs can not intercept the missile.

Why would a ballistic parabola inherently mean that a missile could not be intercepted?

@ftxcommando said in Nuclear thread - can we go ballistic?:

Nukes don't need a buff by blowing up 5 seconds earlier.

In the end its just about a minimal amount, and probably 0.5 sec difference in time.

@redx said in Nuclear thread - can we go ballistic?:

@jip said in Nuclear thread - can we go ballistic?:

It can both be implemented, but a parabola trajectory is not recommended. it means that intermediate SMDs can not intercept the missile.

Why would a ballistic parabola inherently mean that a missile could not be intercepted?

I might be wrong but it's cuz it makes it so that SMD won't have enough time to react to nukes heading to the frontal part of the SMD coverage. As instead of the nuke flying up high and then going straight down at the target, the nuke will head at angle towards the target. Lowering the time that SMD missile have to catch up to the nuke.

Basically all the SMD's would now have kinda eggshaped effective range rather than a circle.

Something like this I guess:

my problem with this is that you can't know for sure if your nuke gonna hit right area or gonna collide with some mountain

It also makes no sense for nukes to have a ballistic trajectory since they are propelled for the whole flight. They function more like cruise missile which also roughly matches their current trajectory of staying low and doing a sharp turn near the target.
It's more weird that tac missiles have a ballistic trajectory, but that could be argued with that they are low cost and thus only use some cheap unguided rocket that only propells during the launch phase.
There is also research being done to have long range missiles that don't fly in ballistic trajectories, because that's just slower than flying straight. (at least for shorter distances of <5k km)
So there is zero reason why an expensive missile in a futuristic game should have a ballistic trajectory.
At best you'd give it like the trajectory of a hypersonic glide missile, where it goes up, then down a bit into the glide until it's above the target and then drops.

I thought tactical missiles fire up into the air, then glide towards the target... This ballistic trajectory stuff regarding TMLs is confusing me!